Christmas Hurts
by clair beaubien
Summary: Started out as a Missing Scene to Supernatural Christmas: Dean performs a little first aide on Sam's finger. Ch2 is Christmas 2008. Ch3 is Christmas 2009.
1. Christmas 2007

_Christmas 2007_

Sam was pretty sure the smell of pine branches would always be a painful memory for him.

For one thing, Dean's insistence on celebrating this last Christmas, and his own continued refusal, hurt every time he thought about it. Holidays never meant much to any of them, except as reminders or markers or flashing lights pointing out other more painful dates in their lives. And all those Christmas lights were pointing now was the black hole that Sam would be dragging along right beside himself come next May.

For another thing, his fingerfreaking _hurt_ wherefreaking _Auntie Claus_ had ripped his_ freaking fingernail out._ Usually Sam was pretty stoic when it came to pain and blood and gaping wounds in his body, but dammit, it_ hurt_. It wasn't bad enough that they'd ripped it out, but then he'd had to wrestle the branches off a Christmas tree, digging needles into his exposed nail bed that felt like red hot spikes. Then they had to wrap up the bodies and cart them off for a little Yuletide salt and burn, and all the exertion kept the blood flowing out of his finger in a thick trickle.

And it_ hurt._

Dean had put a bandage on it at the car and made Sam take painkillers before they did the actual burn, but now they were back at the motel and Sam had to wash his hand of the pine pitch and blood, and that meant properly washing his mutilated finger.

Which was going to_ hurt._

Maybe it wasn't the physical pain though. He'd worked with broken bones, bronchitis, migraines, torn ligaments – pretty much any injury a person could get, he'd worked with. A couple of painkillers, a shot of whiskey, an ace bandage, and then back in the game.

This time though, this time everything was just a reminder that he was losing Dean. A year from now, six months from now, there'd be no Dean to put a bandage on so Sam didn't have to do it one-handed. No Dean conspicuously hovering outside the bathroom door waiting to know how Sam was coming along.

No pain in the ass big brother with zero sense of personal space to come into the bathroom anyway with no more warning than that he was suddenly there.

"How's it coming?"

"I can't get the bandage off. The gauze is stuck to the skin – DON'T!" Sam nearly shouted when Dean took hold of his hand. But he didn't pull at the bandage like Sam was afraid he would, he only turned Sam's hand over once or twice, looking close.

"Relax, Princess. I'm not gonna do anything…we need to run some warm water over it. That'll loosen it up."

"_That'll hurt_."

"Yeah, probably. Here…"

Dean turned the faucet on and held his hand under the water, adjusting the knobs until the temperature apparently met with his satisfaction.

"All right. Here we go."

He took Sam's hand again and as he moved it toward the stream of water, Sam squeezed his eyes shut against the oncoming pain. Instead of the water hitting the tip of his finger head on though, only a thin trickle ran down, gently soaking the gauze and working it loose. When he opened his eyes, he saw that Dean had positioned his own hand over Sam's hand, blunting the water, making it hurt less.

"Okay, let's see…" Dean shut the water off and nudged at the bandage and it slid into the sink. "Okay, looks good. Y'know, as good as it can for being so ugly…how's it feel?"

"Hurts."

"Bad?"

"No. Not as bad as I thought it would."

"Good. Okay, wash your hands, I'll get the kit."

Dean left the bathroom and Sam picked up the bar of soap. He wasn't sure that he could wash both his hands though without getting that fingertip wet. But he managed. He turned the water on and wet the soap, then ran it over his hands and cautiously scrubbed them together to get all the pine tar off. His fingertip stung, but not unbearably.

He heard Dean out in the motel room, whistling 'Jingle Bells', as he got the first aide kit. Against his will, Sam heard silence instead of the trilling notes. If he couldn't save Dean, if Dean didn't want to be saved, if some miracle didn't happen and soon, Sam's world would be filled with the silence of loneliness and desperation and no Dean.

"Okay, here we go." Dean came back into the bathroom, jarring Sam out of his painful thoughts. Dean was here, he was still here. "Got the bandages, got the plastic bags."

"Plastic bags? For what?"

"To cover your hand so you can take a shower. 'Cause - you _need_ to take a shower…"

"Funny, Dean."

"Who's being funny? All right, here we go. C'mon."

Sam offered his hand up. Dean used a folded square of gauze to pat the fingertip dry, then squeezed a blob of antibiotic ointment onto it, and taped it up with pre-made bandage of gauze-stuck-on-medical-tape. Sam didn't watch what Dean was doing though, he watched Dean's face.

He knew that face, from his earliest memories he knew that face in exactly this attitude - absorbed in his task, slightly amused from some random thought that was crossing his mind, taking care of Sam, whether it was a flesh wound gushing blood, or the shattered dream of a normal life.

Wasn't he always taking care of Sam?

And the only thing he'd ever asked in return was to celebrate one last Christmas with his brother.

And Sam had said no.

"What?" Dean asked, looking up to catch Sam watching him.

"Hell of a way to spend Christmas Eve, hunh?"

"Not the worst we've spent."

"No."

Then Dean covered Sam's hand in three plastic grocery bags and used most of the rest of the roll of medical tape to secure them around his wrist, then patted Sam's shoulder.

"There you go. Unless you want help taking a shower."

"Uh - no. _Thank you._ I can manage from here."

"Okay…"Dean left the bathroom again, whistling 'Jingle Bells' again, and shut the door behind him.

He deserved a Christmas and dammit, he was going to have one. The best Christmas that Sam could manage to put together.

Because celebrating Christmas this year wouldn't hurt as bad as the memory of _not_ celebrating it was going to hurt next year.

Sam took his shower and mapped out his strategy for the next day.

The End.


	2. Christmas 2008

_Christmas 2008_

Sam looked down at his right index fingernail. The one he'd so traumatically lost last Christmas. Dean had been dead a month by the time it grew long enough to need to be trimmed again. _Damn Auntie Claus_. It still hurt just thinking about it. A lot of things weren't sacred in this life but - _dammit _– fingernails should be one of them.

This morning, Christmas morning, Sam'd been awake long before the sun rose and started bouncing cheerful light off the snow banks and into their motel room. He made coffee in the unbelievably small coffee maker on the bathroom sink and snagged a couple of the frosted anise cookies out of the waxed bag on the cupboard, then settled in his bed, sitting back against the headboard to stare at his Christmas present.

Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza, St. Nicholas Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Leap Day, Arbor Day, birthday – any day that a present might be given, Sam had that present right here with him in the tiny motel room, sound asleep under a puke-tan bedspread, oblivious to the glaring daylight and muffled church bells and smell of coffee filling the room.

Sam's Christmas present was _Dean_.

Neither of them had had any nightmares last night at least; the heavily spiked eggnog probably had a hand in that. Dean hadn't mentioned anything about celebrating this year, so Sam hadn't either, but he'd bought the eggnog and Dean already had the whiskey so they'd celebrated in their own particular Winchester way. No tree, no lights, no decorations, but no nightmares so that was a 'win' in Sam's book.

_Merry Boring Christmas…_

He looked from Dean back down at his fingernail again.

The nail had grown back misshapen at first, all bumps and dips and ugly and Sam thought it might stay that way permanently. These past few months though it'd been growing straight and even. The past few months since Dean had been back. Not that one had to do with the other, it was just that Sam's way of telling time had evolved from '_before Dean died'_ and '_since Dean died'_, to - Thank God Almighty - '_since Dean came back_.'

Three months and one week he'd been back. And things between them were as bumpy and dippy and occasionally as ugly as his regrowing fingernail had ever been, but things would smooth out. That's just the way things worked. Ugly, angry, and pissed always gave way to concerned, laughing, and forgiven.

Always.

And even if it didn't, it didn't matter. Sam had been willing to go to hell to save Dean, and no amount of tension between them would ever be_ hell._ Even losing another fingernail would be nothing compared to –

Sam pushed himself off the bed and went to check the latest yield of coffee. The little coffeemaker barely made enough for one good sized mug each time. He refilled his cup and set the machine up ready to make more coffee, as soon as they wanted it, with the flip of its switch.

How stupid was it to complain about one measly little fingernail when Dean had endured _hell_. Hell and inconceivable agony; a lifetime of pain and misery and agony and horror. What was one fingernail to that? What was _anything_ compared to that?

_Merry Freaking Christmas…_

Sam took his coffee back to his bed but didn't touch his cookies. He didn't feel much like eating anymore. He felt the same ache in his chest and unease in his gut that he always felt, that he'd been feeling for a year and a half, since Dean first made the deal.

Usually when he was with Dean, when they were talking or driving or fighting, as long as they were together, usually Sam could stop thinking for awhile what Dean had been through, because when he was with Dean there was always something else to think about. Or talk about. Or argue about. Music and motels, who to trust, what to hunt, when to stop, where to eat, how Dean was smarter and why Sam should do what he said.

But when Dean wasn't there, or when he was there but asleep, or there but just not talking, those forty years seemed to fill up every bit of space in Sam's brain, the years and the pain and the horror and the screams that Sam knew he could never imagine clearly enough.

And that was Sam's hell.

_Merry Stinking Christmas…_

Dean didn't stir, no matter how hard Sam stared at him and willed him to wake up. But that was okay, they needed it. Dean to sleep and Sam needed to not need Dean to wake up.

It wasn't like they were going to do anything special. They were maybe four hours away from Bobby's, but nobody had mentioned going there. When Dean did wake up, they'd pack up and check out and go find somewhere to have a late breakfast. Then they'd get on the road and drive somewhere, anywhere, just to not have nothing at all to do.

They used to be able to do nothing at all together - drive, sit, drink beer, watch TV, go to a movie. Now everything had that strained undercurrent of what was said vs. what was meant vs. what was a lie vs. what wasn't being said at all.

Sam got up and put his cookies back in the bag. Maybe he should boot up his computer and look for a hunt somewhere. Look for _some _something they could do today that wouldn't be celebrating Christmas, but wouldn't be mindlessly driving nowhere at all either. Something that made Sam feel like they were brothers again, and not just two guys who happened to be going the same place at the same time in the same car.

That's what it felt like ever since Dean told him about hell, like he had thrown up a wall that Sam wasn't allowed through. Sam could tell Dean anything, everything - _almost _everything - he could even use his powers in front of Dean, and apparently Dean could deal with it, even keep treating Sam like the brother he'd always been.

But from the minute Dean told Sam about hell, that damned Winchester Wall of Silence came between them every damned time Sam tried to do one damned thing for his brother.

_Merry Stupid Christmas…_

He sighed and rubbed his face and looked at his fingernail again.

When it first got ripped out, it hurt worse than Sam ever thought anything could hurt. And considering everything he'd been through in his life to that point, that was saying something. Then when Dean died, Sam knew that nothing in his life before that moment had ever hurt at all. Even now, even with Dean just across the room, safe and sound and softly snoring away, it hurt to remember how he died, and how every single breath from that moment on was like breathing fire.

When Sam's finger was hurt, all the painkillers in the world - tablet, liquid or topical - weren't enough to make him to forget the pain entirely, even when it was only the _memory _of the pain.

When Dean was dead, _everything _made Sam remember that he was gone and in hell.

_Merry Miserable Christmas…_

Sam sat at the table and picked up his laptop. He'd find a hunt or a hint of a hunt or _something_ _dammit_ to fill up their day. But it slipped in his grasp and fell on that same index finger, mashing the tip between the table and the corner of computer. He spat out a few curses and shook his hand and tried to squeeze the pain away.

His outburst had the unintended consequence of rousing Dean. He yawned and pushed his blankets back and sat up, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand.

"Hey." His typical morning greeting. He pushed to his feet and headed for the bathroom. "You're up early." He sounded worn out.

A year before, or six months, before Dean died, Sam would have had no hesitation telling Dean that he didn't feel well, that something was bothering him, that he wasn't sleeping. And Dean would've pressed for more information, asking questions, assessing answers, pushing until he was sure he knew exactly what was wrong, and that Sam knew exactly what Dean would do to make it better.

Now though, _since Dean came back_, any mention of Sam not feeling well seemed to balance on the thought or wonder or assumption that he'd been doing things Dean didn't approve of, with the result that Dean didn't push for anything more, and rarely offered any help or comfort.

_Merry Pointless Christmas._

"I whacked my finger with the laptop." Sam told him, even though that wasn't why he was up early. "Same damn finger I lost the nail from last year."

Dean stopped as he walked past the table. He grabbed Sam's finger and pulled it up for a closer look. He pinched the tip and gave it a shake.

"_Ow."_ Sam complained and pulled his hand away from Dean.

"Not broken. Ice." Dean said in that same exhausted tone.

Before Sam could tell Dean he was fine, Dean walked to the refrigerator and pulled out the tray that made ice cubes that were smaller than cubes of sugar. He dumped them all into a plastic cup and plunked that down in front of Sam.

"Put your finger in there…"

Sam rolled his eyes but did as he was told.

"S'there coffee?" Dean asked.

"On the bathroom counter. Just flip the switch."

"Right."

The bathroom door closed and Sam let out a long breath as his apprehension and all his dark thoughts of hell and misery and hopeless loneliness drained away. Dean was awake and alive and bossy and the best Christmas present Sam had ever had. Dean could hole up behind his Wall. They could get in the car and drive for the next twenty four hours in complete and utter silence. They could let this day fritter away with never once saying a word to each other. As long as it was Dean he wasn't talking to, it wouldn't matter to Sam.

Dean finished in the bathroom and came to the table. Instead of sitting down, he pushed a section of newspaper in front of Sam.

"Whyn't you find a matinee movie we can go see? Bobby's expecting us by five…"

Then he dropped an anise cookie in front of Sam, muttered, "_Merry Christmas, Sammy,"_ and went to get dressed.

Sam stared at the cookie, he stared at the newspaper, he stared at his brother, pulling clothes out of his duffel and covering a yawn with his hand.

Bossy, pushy, annoying, best-present-Sam-had-ever-gotten-in-his-life, Big Brother.

"_Merry Christmas, Dean."_

The End.


	3. Christmas 2009

A/N 1: If I update an existing story, it'll be on this site. (Just because it's easier...) New stories (and there's a couple) will be (and are) at my website: www(dot)maureenlougen(dot)com(slash)supernaturalfanfiction

A/N2: This story is set Season 5 Christmas

* * *

The air was cold, the picnic table that was placed - _oddly _- on the narrow concrete porch right outside their motel room was cold, Sam's coffee was cold, and the whiskey in his coffee was just as bitter as the thoughts in his head.

Didn't Christmas just suck?

He'd been sitting out here, on the picnic tabletop, well, he didn't know how long. Long enough for the dusk to dawn security light to fizzle out as the sun finally came up. Long enough for the cold to leach through his jacket and start him shivering where he sat. Long enough for his bare fingers to go numb, holding onto the piece of paper he'd pulled out of Dad's journal.

Long enough to have made up his mind how he wanted - how he _didn't_ want - to spend the rest of the day.

They were just across the state line from South Dakota, just a morning's drive from Bobby's, with maybe lunch thrown in for good measure, and Bobby was expecting them. It'd been more of a last minute 'pity invite' when Bobby found out how close they were, it sure wasn't a 'can't wait to see you' invite, but Sam'd rather sit here until his butt froze to the picnic table than spend the day anywhere and with anybody but Dean and only Dean.

Now, he had to get Dean to understand, if not agree.

He took another sip of his cold, doctored coffee and heard the alarm go off on the crappy little motel clock radio inside the room. Dean would be getting up now. He'd be getting up and Sam was going to have to explain not wanting to go to Bobby's. Not today.

He poured more whiskey into his coffee from the flask that sat next to him and gulped it down.

After a few minutes, he heard the door behind him open, felt the momentary blast of warm air reach his cold hands and then disappear, felt Dean come stand beside him.

"Hey."

"Hey." Sam answered without looking up. At least Dean hadn't said, '_Merry Christmas'._

"You get any sleep?" Dean asked. Sam lifted his head to give a doctored answer, and saw his obviously unused bed through the half opened door.

"Guess not."

"_Hmmm."_

Dean walked around and sat on the picnic table next to Sam. He looked at but didn't mention the flask.

"Whatcha got there?" He asked of the paper in Sam's hand.

"Uhh -" Sam flapped it up and down once or twice. "It's - uh - the first exorcism I learned." He held it where Dean could see it. "Dad wrote it out phonetically for me. I just - it fell out of Dad's journal and I just -"

_He just wanted to touch something that Dad had given to him. _

"Yeah." Dean said, even though Sam hadn't really explained. Then they didn't move and they didn't say anything for a few long minutes. Dean reached around Sam to snag the flask of whiskey.

"How's your finger?" He asked, the open flask halfway to his mouth.

"My finger?"

"The one you smashed last Christmas, the one Auntie Claus ripped the nail out of the year before that. I'm figuring you're due for an amputation this year. A splinter at the very least."

Sam gave a glance at his finger, but there was nothing remarkable there. He shrugged.

"Fine. I guess. No splinters. No nothing."

Dean kind of shrugged and nodded an agreement.

"So - what're we doing out here? _In the freezing cold."_

Sam looked out at the desolate landscape. Across the empty road from them was an abandoned strip mall, with windows cracked and missing and boarded up. Next to the motel was a diner that was closed for the holiday, _of course. _ Scattered elsewhere up and down the road were two junkyards, a pawn shop, and overgrown empty fields. This had to be the crappiest motel at the end of the crappiest road in the crappiest town on the crappiest day.

And Sam in the crappiest mood.

"_I don't want to go to Bobby's." _Sam said, but it came out so softly, Dean leaned in closer to Sam while he was saying it. "_Not today."_

"Um - okay." Dean said. "_Why?_"

"There's nothing to celebrate. Not this year. _Especially not this year."_

"Well, yeah, but - it's not like we're _going_ to celebrate. We're just going 'cause we're close enough. Bobby's not gonna have a tree or anything. No fancy holiday dinner. You know, unless you count three nearly matching plates and cups as _fancy._"

Sam huffed a little laugh at that, but only a little.

"But we'll _be_ there, on _Christmas_. _That_ means something. And it feels like - it'll _feel_ like - I just _can't_. Not today. Not this year."

"Okay." Dean said again, but Sam could hear the disappointment.

"_Tomorrow_." Sam said. "Tomorrow, any day that isn't today." But there was still Dean's disappointment. He didn't deserve a crappy Christmas. "I mean - just drop me off at a motel, anywhere close to Bobby's. I'll come there tomorrow. You don't have to not go. Just - just - I just can't go there today."

Dean didn't say anything. Sam wished he would say something. But he sat there, they both just sat there for a few minutes, not saying anything.

"How about we just take a slow drive there, stop for dinner, go to a movie. Get to Bobby's after midnight." Dean said, after a while. "After midnight won't be Christmas anymore."

"You'd do that for me?"

"Do what?" Dean asked. "Spend the day with my brother? Yeah, real sacrifice there."

Maybe it was the whiskey. Maybe it was the night of no sleep. Maybe it was being with the brother who did nothing _but_ sacrifice for him. Sam felt overwhelmed with relief and affection.

"Thanks."

"Yeah, well –" Dean said and Sam could hear the awkwardness. "You're welcome." He reached over and emptied the little that was left in the flask into Sam's coffee cup, then stood up from the table.

"I'll get ready and we can hunt up someplace to get you a breakfast you can't drink. Unless you _want_ to sleep your way through this Christmas."

"Might not be a bad idea." Sam muttered.

Dean was opening the motel room door, but he turned back and gave Sam that once over, that long glance up and down that was like Dean deconstructing Sam and rebuilding him back up, trying to get the most intense possible look into what was going on with him.

"Wanna just stay another day here? Go get some breakfast, rent some videos, hang out?"

Sam needed all of four seconds to think about it. Instead of a day on the road, avoiding Christmas reminders and other unhappy people with nowhere to be, it'd be just a day of them, him and Dean, and whatever takeout was still open today.

"Yeah, sure. Thanks."

Dean shrugged that away.

"Better than having you snoring all over the inside of my car."

Then he was gone back into the motel room and Sam finished his whiskey-laced-with-coffee. He might just survive this day after all.

The end.


End file.
